Great moments in kid lit (1)
12 Comments Published November 13th, 2007 in Kid lit, Mostly a picture.
“Miss Moppet ties up her
head in a duster, and sits
before the fire.”
In honor of Children’s Book Week, I inaugurate an occasional series.
This is from Beatrix Potter’s Miss Moppet, and the most astute commentary I can offer is, “Huh?”
Lesbian Dad is written by a parent who answers to the name "Baba" and works toward a world in which amor does indeed vincit omnia. 
Maybe Miss Moppet doesn’t want her weave to get messed up? =P
What?! You don’t do that. There’s nothing I like more than sitting before the fire with me head in a duster.
I have two wild guesses…I mean, deeply thought out hypotheses. 1) The fire is hot and Miss Moppet doesn’t want to singe her whiskers. 2) In the time the book was written fires were fueled by coal, which created a lot of soot. Miss Moppet, being a tidy cat, doesn’t want to soil her lungs or her fur with such nastiness. Imagine all the licking it would require to reclaim her natural beauty.
Of course, what I’m really wondering is how she tied the knot in that duster without opposable thumbs?
How about…..’Always establish an escape route before playing with the cat!’
or…..’Hairball prevention: the belt and braces approach’.
clearly little miss moppet has allergies that are exacerbated by the sooty fire. unfortunately, studies are thus far inconclusive regarding feline use of claritin.
Vikki, I choked for a good while there. “Me head.” “Me head.” That’s the best part.
The hypotheses are fantastic. I totally will not spoil all the fun with any details about the context in which this event unfolded (though I will say that it still dumbfounded me upon first reading, and then again for pert’ near a half a dozen more). Or at least not until a few more intrepid souls have a chance to hazard a guess as to what in the Sam Hill Miss Moppet was up to.
Maybe she’s indulged in just a little too much catnip (her joints really feel the cold, you know), and likes the way the flames look through the weave of the cloth…
Yeah, annz. It’s like a “magic eye” picture for cats! If they just stare really hard into the flames, then slightly unfocus their eyes…BAM! I’ts Dante’s “Inferno” being acted out by mice!
Okay, so to summarize so far, we have:
• hair protection device (muss prevention)
• whisker protection device (singe prevention)
• hair protection device (soot prevention)
• predator protection device (employed by mice)
• hairball protection device (employed by Miss Moppet)
• allergen protection device (effectiveness of feline Claritin: inconclusive)
• aid to post-catnip trippin’
• ditto, except thematized to include great literary works featuring flames
Then we have one exclamation of surprise that we don’t all do this daily.
I could not resist…I read the Moppet tome in it’s entirety to gain some context, some insight, some flicker of “what could this possibly be about?”. And it’s a ruse! Ms Moppet is up to no good, no good at all…bad kitty.
Youbetcha by gum. You sly literary detective, you.
Beneath that duster lies the duplicitous heart of a Trojan Horse.
I guess I can’t play because I’ve read it and know exactly why Miss Moppet has her head in a duster.
My favorite bit comes later, when she discovers the hole in the duster.